If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Websleuths News

Join Websleuths Radio for the final discussion of THE KILLING SEASON
with Josh Zemam, Rachel Mills and special guests including Bob Kolker author of Lost Girls

"His parents divorced when he was a toddler and his mother took him and his elder brother Thomas, now 22, to Portugal. His father, Johan van Helsum, fought a custody battle and, upon winning the case, flew out to bring his sons back to the Netherlands."

"Mr. van Helsum agreed to let him move to the nearby town of Almelo, to live in supervised accommodation. Father visited son regularly, but the situation was far from ideal.

"''He was asked to leave after he got a girl pregnant,' his stepmother, Ellen van Helsum, told a local newspaper yesterday . 'She had been living with two other boys and Robin in the care home.'"

Fascinating. So he told many that he was in Berlin but nobody in the Netherlands heard of the forest boy story?

His past is still quite mysterious. Mom fled with him and his brother to Portugal? Dad fights for custody, wins and then puts him in a care home. He was then kicked out of the home because he got a girl pregnant.

I had a lot of sympathy for him until I read the article above when he was confronted with the information of who he was he said..."okay you got me".

If that is accurate reporting then this man isn't delusional but a con artist IMHO.

Quite the scam.

A con artist does not say Oh you got me, they dance around it and manipulate.
I think he was scared, did not know how to get help, and did not realize that the way he did go about it would create legal/costly problems. I do not think he was able to think through that. I think he survived with stories.
Just My Opinion.

Women are Angels.
And when someone breaks our wings,
we simply continue to fly... on a broomstick.

Fascinating. So he told many that he was in Berlin but nobody in the Netherlands heard of the forest boy story?

His past is still quite mysterious. Mom fled with him and his brother to Portugal? Dad fights for custody, wins and then puts him in a care home. He was then kicked out of the home because he got a girl pregnant.

Did I get that right? What a crazy story.

I'm not sure what the news coverage was in Europe. My cousin is the Army attache to the Czech Republic and when the story broke about the "Boy from the Forest" living in Czech forests I contacted my cousin. He hadn't heard a word of the story, even though it supposedly involved the country where he is stationed.

While many questions have been answered, there is still some mystery surrounding van Helsum. Many are likely still wondering why a man seemingly easily left his life, and his son?
Then there are the questions of where he is now, and where will he go? Will he continue to run from his past, or will he embrace a future now that his "limbo" status under the safety net of the German government is gone?
There is also the issue of German officials seeking reimbursement for the costs incurred while van Helsum was under their care.
Rigi, his former flatmate, said, "It's true that he didn't have the most balanced start. But he wasn't a person to whinge about it; he had big dreams of working to help young people who went through similar experiences. That's why it is so strange that he just disappeared. I knew him really well – we would spend hours talking – and no one saw this coming."

Interesting. I am curious where he is now. Do the German authorities know where he is so they can sue him? Can he be made to pay child support back home? Not sure how that kind of legal stuff works in Europe. I'd be afraid he'd just run off again if left to his own devices. He doesn't seem to be much interested in taking responsibility.

Hmm supposedly he has not been seen since being kicked out of the social housing on 06/19. I can't believe they didn't arrest him for fraud!

If there is anything worse than the sandwiches, it is the sausages which sit next to them. Joyless tubes, full of gristle, floating in a sea of something hot and sad, stuck with a plastic pin in the shape of a chef’s hat: A memorial, one feels, for some chef who hated the world, and died, forgotten and alone among his cats on a back stair in Stepney. – Douglas Adams

• Robin van Helsum claimed to have been living in forest for five years with his father
• Said he had lost memory and had buried his father after the man's sudden death two weeks earlier
• In fact, the troubled youngster had left the Netherlands just days before
• Fled when German authorities wanted to sue him for cost of care and searches to find his family - at least £25,000
• Has now been found working in a Burger King in Berlin